The Collector Review (Film, 2009) Take Two
The Collector was previously reviewed on Sketching Details in 2009. I’m not opposed to taking another look at films when time has passed and the greater context of the era and genre is more established.
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content warning: violence against women, violence against children, violence against animals, gore, homophobia
The year is 2009. Horror films like Saw and Hostel have reignited the commercial value of a gory horror film. Producers are itching to get in on the so called “torture porn” craze, so they start green-lighting extremely violent horror films. These kinds of trends run on a cycle, especially in horror, and all it takes a couple successful films of a type—ghost stories, monster movies, gore films, horror/thrillers, etc.—to see one of the sub-genres dominate the landscape. Slashers peaked in the 80s, roadshow b-movies peaked in the 60s, and the torture films peaked in the aughts.
The Collector is one of the tamer entries in this time period. Arkin, a handyman, gets caught up in a murderer’s deadly game when he tries to rob his newest employer’s house. The family is about to go on vacation and someone has set up the house with deadly traps. The Collector leaves a red trunk and a calling card when he visits, and The Collector always gets what he wants.
The approach to the violence is Texas Chainsaw Massacre territory. Director Marcus Dunstan will show you what will happen, cuts to a reaction shot, then shows you the aftermath. You rarely see the actual violence happen onscreen. If you do, it is not lingered on. It’s genuinely blink and you’ll miss it moments of gore.
I know people who swear they saw things in this film that are never shown onscreen, same as the people who will swear you see someone get placed on the meat hook in Texas Chainsaw Massacre; you don’t. It’s editing designed to make your brain fill in the missing details and it’s a powerful tool in horror. It’s one of those tricks that can help a more violent film get a more commercial rating than it would if everything is shown. The less effective corollary to this is to darken the screen so you can’t see everything, but that sacrifices clear visuals for shadowy gore and is rarely effective.
The Collector does stand out from the more violent horror in this time because of its story. For one, there actually is a plot beyond the violence. Arkin is trying to earn the money to pay off his girlfriend’s debt to a loan shark. His girlfriend and his daughter are in danger and will have to go into hiding if the money does not make it home by midnight. Arkin is a criminal. He’s also an extremely empathetic figure. He could easily find his way out of this deadly game with The Collector, but he wants his employer’s family to be safe, too. His robberies aren’t supposed to have deadly consequences and he wants to keep it that way.
The first act of The Collector is a tense heist thriller. Everything that happens in the first 25 minutes would be the third act climax in that genre. Arkin meets with his girlfriend, who lets him know how serious the loan shark threat is. He then calls on his crime partners for one more heist. He sneaks into the property, picking locks, cracking safes, and hiding from witnesses to reach his goal. We have a feature film worth of exposition set up before we even see The Collector for the first time, changing the direction and style of the film.
Perhaps the biggest issue with The Collector is the disorienting editing. There’s a distinctly 90s music video style to these mid-late ‘00s horror films. Director James Wan popularized the style in Saw and horror films were expected to copy that rapid fire editing for years afterwards. Marcus Dunstan hits the style notes well, but it feels forced in this context. You don’t need a shaky, fast moving close up of a wire snaking up and down a wall to a snare trap for 30 seconds before showing the snare trap you already saw triggered go off in the way you expected.
Dunstan also uses some Tarantino-styled overhead cuts and long tracking shots to show simultaneous action happening between adjacent rooms in the house. This is a smart choice and adds some nice tension to the film. However, it also gets layered with the spinning horror cut straight from the Saw series. It’s distracting. I remember getting motion sickness when I first saw this film in theaters upon release and it still has that effect 11 years later. It’s not as bad as the third act of The Blair Witch Project, but it is uncomfortable.
The problem with trends in cinema is not the content or tone, but the style. Signature elements of that one smash hit are pushed into similar films whether they fit or not. It’s one thing when the original director does it. James Wan, for example, used those fast spinning cuts in Dead Silence, Insidious, and The Conjuring. They fit his style and enhance his narratives. Other films suffer when those flourishes are, let’s say, encouraged during production. The Collector is at its best when the focus is on the characters and the stories, not hyper-kinetic editing to make it look like every other horror film at the time.
My genuine recommendation is to watch the sequel to this film, The Collection, before swinging back around to the original. Marcus Dunstan gets a second crack at this world and he’s given the creative freedom to mold his own horror/thriller rather than chase the trends at the time. You’ll have a better appreciation for what this story wants to be with the context of the sequel.
An addendum: I do have major issues with the dialogue at the climax of the film. Arkin, in his moment of utter frustration and fear, starts to say some incredibly offensive things. This is pretty typical dude bro lingo at the time, which is a contextual note, not an excuse. The Collector is hardly the only horror film to use sexuality as an insult in a heated moment, but it is especially shocking coming from someone who is otherwise so likable in the film. The Collector himself becomes even more aggressive when being called that word. Apparently being called out for violent crimes against other people is okay, but having someone question your sexuality is what’s really offensive. I can’t.
The Collector is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.
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